2/223 — "Your tilth"
The root ح-ر-ث: to plough the soil and cast seed. The root has occurred at two other places in this commentary — the corrupter's destroying of the ḥarth at 2/205, and the distinction at al-Wāqiʿa 56/63 between the human being's act of ḥarth and God's act of zarʿ.
What the comparison looks to can be read from the root itself. Ḥarth, in the lexicographers' description, is the work of sowing, and sowing has a single direction: the future. A field that is sown is sown for a crop.
For this reason it is widely said in the classical commentaries that the comparison is a description looking to children and offspring — indeed the continuation of the sentence supports this: wa qaddimū li-anfusikum — "send on ahead for yourselves."
And there is a further point that must be recorded: ḥarth in Arabic is what is valued, what labour is spent on, what is protected. A tilth is its owner's source of livelihood; it is not what is neglected but what is watched over. To pull the comparison in a demeaning direction runs against the word's use in Arabic.
وَٱتَّقُوا۟ ٱللَّهَ وَٱعْلَمُوٓا۟ أَنَّكُم مُّلَٰقُوهُ — this clause, coming immediately after the sentence, does not leave the permission unbounded. A form repeated in the sūra: a note of responsibility beside a permission.
And in the preceding verse (222) the boundary had already been set. The two verses are read together: one sets the boundary, the other leaves the field outside the boundary free.